feedback – Sidi's Journey

Intervention 7 – A workshop – feedback, reflection and model iteration

Conclusion: In this intervention, I found and verified the difference/gap between art practitioners and students. People have better interpersonal skills, cooperation skills, and independent thinking skills after work. In addition, because of the specificity of students’ identities (innocence, ego mentality, not having experienced the cruelty of society), it isn’t easy to make them realize the importance of other abilities in the development model. It’s hard to change them (this is also where this intervention failed.) But this failure made me think about this model’s place, before graduation, after graduation or after work. I failed in changing the student participants, but this model gave two other (art practitioners) more thought about their ability development, which I did not expect. In addition, the sample size of this workshop is relatively small, which cannot fully explain the problem. This needs to be further studied by enlarging the sample size. At the same time, I found a new ability that I could consider adding to my model: endurance/tolerance.

Introduction: I designed a series of multiple task based on my career model. Each question has one correct choice which represents one ability. I plan to ask participants these questions and ask them to answer them and explain why. Also observe how they answer the questions to find out the differences between them. And try to make student participants aware of the differences between themselves and art practitioners and think about those differences.

Audience: I invited two art practitioners who has fine art background and one fine art background student who study in Italy right now.

My goal: 1) to verify the difference between art practitioners and students. 2) to change student’s thought about develop other abilities in a all around way. 3) to discover other abilities that I didn’t notice before and develop my career model.

Record:

Participant’s answers:

1. Organization ability

Please give your answer after carefully considering the logic and possible consequences.Imagine you are painting at home and the following things happen at the same time. In what order would you tackle them?

1)The doorbell rings.

2)Two cats next to you suddenly fight, and it is hard to separate.

3)The phone rings.

4)The bathtub is about to overflow.

5)You’ve spilled your paint and it’s about to spill on the floor.

correct answer: 2-5-4-1-3

Sirui: 5-1-4-3-2, I am not a organized people.

Yuchen: : 5-3-1-2-4, I think I am more organized at work than in life.

Muzi: 5-4-1-2-5, I’m an impulsive person.

2. Interpersonal skills/communication ability

Suppose you commission a gallery/institution to sell your work and they tell you that five copies were sold last week, you will…..

A. Feel happy and keep working on it.

B. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers.

C. Ask the gallery for a list of buyers, and try to contact them when appropriate.

correct answer: C

Sirui: A

Yuchen: C

Muzi: C

3. Cooperative ability

Suppose you need to select a project. One is to complete a painting project independently, the other is to work as a team. These two projects require the same amount of time and energy for you. Which one would you prefer?

A. Independent project, reason…

B. Team project, reason…

Correct answer:B

Sirui: A, I don’t like to socialize. I just want to do my thing.

Yuchen: A, I don’t want to spend time and energy communicating with others, and I want to minimize unnecessary misunderstandings.

Muzi: A/B, I can’t decide. On the one hand, I don’t like to communicate with others. On the other hand, I think team work can expand my network and help me in my future work.

4. Independent thinking

You are drawing a painting to be marked at the end of the term. Your teacher, whom you like and admire very much, gives you some suggestions, but you are not sure whether the teacher’s suggestions are right. What will you do?

A. Continue to work on your original idea

B.Try to revise it as the teacher suggested

C.Seek other people’s suggestions and revise them after comprehensive consideration

Correct answer: C

Sirui: B, If I have no idea, I will certainly listen to the teacher, after all, I don’t want to fail.

Yuchen: B, If the revision is not too complicated, I will follow the teacher’s advice.

Muzi: C, When I was a student, I chose A, but now I choose C.

5. A Commitment to Curiosity

Imagine that your friend has created a new piece of work to share with you, this is the style that you don’t like. How would you respond?

A.Give a false compliment.

B. Directly express that you don’t like the work.

C. Although I don’t like this style, I still try to see the advantages of others and give affirmation.

Correct answer: C

Sirui: A, As long as it is my good friend, no matter how he draws, I will praise him.

Yuchen: C, I think there must be something I can learn, like composition, color, whatever.

Muzi: A, I’m going to go for A.

Q：What do you think has changed the most between your student years and now?

Muzi: I think my tolerance has gotten better. I used to be more intuitive and impulsive. But now I’m more patient.

Yuchen: I work in a game company, and I think I’ve also improved my tolerance, as well as my ability to cooperate and communicate

Q：I have just interpreted my model, and you can also see the difference between you and the other two participants in the process of the workshop. Would you consider developing more of your other abilities now?

Sirui: I’m not going to develop anything else right now. I think I’m still focus on myself.

Q: For example, you and the other two participants gave different answers to the second question about the gallery helping you sell your paintings. Will you still choose A without contacting the buyers?

Sirui: Yes, I was afraid of offending the gallery, and there was no point contacting the buyer. The gallery is in charge of selling, they are more professional,I think it’s enough that I just paint.

Reflective Journal – Talk with Dragons

Last Tuesday, I talked about my project with dragons in 2 mins. I think it’s an excellent opportunity to test whether I understand my project and express it clearly. However, I remember I am too nervous about speaking at a suitable speed. When I reflect on the process, I think I need to strengthen my communication ability, especially with experts and predecessors.

They approved the gap that I identified and gave me some good suggestions. For example, Clare mentioned business ability and advertising ability, and Marie suggested that I consider physical ability, such as the ability to decompress. Artists and designers, especially freelancers, will face more pressure because of the instability of the job and so on.

In addition, in the bookable tutorial with Cai, she suggested I think about this model’s position. For example, before/during/ after the University education.

Intervention 6 – organisation ability test: process, feedback and reflection

At first, I am trying to design a board game that combines and connect all of these abilities, and then invite art student and art practitioners to play it together. Then I can observe the difference between the two groups and let the art student group realize the gap between themselves and the other group. I tried to find some board games, but I didn’t find a suitable one, and it’s hard to design a board game that meets my requirements and expectations. So I think maybe testing each ability one by one is also a good choice. and I would like to start with ‘organization ability’.

I am thinking about in what situation, people could realize that they lack some ability. I think there are two ways. One is comparing with others, and the other is being pointed out by others.

So, for me, I have two ways to design my intervention.

1) inviting mature art practitioners and art students to do/play sth together.

2)using a quiz/test to test art students and point out their shortcomings.

Since I didn’t find a suitable art practitioner now, and I can not make sure the art practitioner has the ability that the art student has not. So I wanna start my next intervention from the second way.

Then I design a quiz which is about organization ability, after they finished, I will show them the right answer and tell them that the more similar to the right answer the more organized people they are. My goal is to test 1) whether fine art students lack organization ability 2) whether I can make them realize it and change their minds about becoming more organized people.

https://www.wjx.cn/wjx/design/previewmobile.aspx?activity=135690783&s=1

The right answer should be 2-5-4-1-3, and the more similar to the right answer the more organised they are.

Reasons:

1) Two cats next to you are engaged in a fierce fight that is hard to stop. It is very dangerous for your artworks when you are painting, and the cat next to you is fighting because they might destroy your paintings. So the first thing is to divide them.
2) Your paint has tipped over. Usually, the paint is right next to you, so simply bending down to pick it up can prevent worse things from happening in a second. It also prevents fighting cats from stepping paint elsewhere.
3）The bathtub is about to overflow. Here I said ‘about‘, which means you still have time to turn it off. So it’s not too late to pick up a cat, pick up a paint can, and run to turn it off.
4) The doorbell is ringing. You can tell the person at the door to wait for two minutes when you deal with the previous things. And you don’t know what the guy at the door wants from you. If he takes a long time, by the time you get back, the cat may have destroyed your work, trampled paint all over the place, and the bathroom is also flooded.
5)The mobile phone is ringing. You can call back later, so the priority is the lowest.

Uncomfortable zone: I didn’t find people I was already familiar with this time, and I sent it to 6 fine art students. I also try to contact some Fine art students in UAL that I don’t know through the WeChat group of the university student Union. There are only six people so far, but at least compared to previous ones, This time I tried to find a target audience I didn’t know.

Their answers of question one:

A: 2-5-4-3-1

B: 1-5-4-2-3

C: 2-5-1-3-4

D: 3-5-4-2-1

E: 3-5-2-1-4

F: 2-5-1-3-4

Their answers to question two:

The more similar it is to ‘5-2-4-1-3’, the more organized you are. If your answer is far from this one, you need to work on your organizational skills! Do you think you are an organized person? What do you think of this statement?

A: I don’t think I am an organized person, but I will try my best to keep things under control.

B: I don’t think the order can explain the ability of organization.

C: I am more organized. Everyone’s understanding of organization is different. I sorted things according to their urgency. Everyone has different views on these things.

D: Maybe

E:/

F: It depends on the situation. Sometimes when doing travel strategy, I will be more organized, but in daily life, it seems that it is not good.

Analyze and reflection:

All these participant didn’t answer the right answers that I design. I think their some problems in my test. I need told them this test is about organization ability at the beginning, and remind them that before they make chose they should consider the potential outcomes and the logical order.
I think maybe I should try test this through online workshop. Since some participants just fill this randomly rather than tell me their true thoughts. And the online workshop allows me to better observe the participants and judge whether the answers they give are not completely true.
At the end of this test, I should have told them the reasons of right answers, which will be more convincing.
I would say that this is a failed intervention. My goal is using this test as a intervention to 1) verify my assumption-they lack of organization ability. 2)help them realize it and try to develop it.

A different opinion from an expert

I am surprised that Patricia replied to my email again and recommended me three artists:

‘Dan Kelly is an artist who is also a hairdresser. He runs DKUK hair salon and art gallery in Peckham. ‘ https://dkuk.biz/

‘Katrine Bohm started a beverage company called Company Drinks — which is also an artwork.’Patricia said.

Company Drinks

‘Tom Ellis is a painter. When he was starting out he used to support himself by making furniture. And then he started to show his furniture with his paintings. His furniture is now considered as sculpture and is an important part of his practice.’Patricia said.

Tom’s combination of painting and furniture activates a striking duality. ‘The fact that they are object types of such a different order allows me to move freely between ostensibly art and non-art activities,’ he says. ‘The furniture serves in part to “depressurise” the painting practice by creating a more culturally blurred setting for its display – a painting above a sofa is a very different proposition to a painting isolated on a pristine gallery wall.’ Tom says he feels that The Wallace Collection brings art closer to the ‘unruly multiplicity of real life, and here we have life in all of its wild and wonderful facets. (Nast, 2016)

https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/tom-ellis
Nast, C. (2016). *Art: Tom Ellis*. [online] House & Garden. Available at: https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/tom-ellis [Accessed 17 Oct. 2021].

Reach out to experts – Fine art course leaders of UAL

In order to improve my career model, I contacted the Fine art teachers of UAL. The following are the two teachers who have replied so far. One is the course leader of Chelsea Fine Arts, and the other is the course leader of CSM Fine Arts.

The survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-KD7QLYD29/

Patricia’s opinion

1) I’ve rated Business ability as 1 — because the definition is a bit confusing: Artists should always focus on making their work in a way that is most interesting for them. If you’re trying to appeal to the market for the sake of making money your practice likely won’t get very far (and you’ll lose interest). This is because it shows more about your understanding of the market (which might not be an expert) than your commitment to your practice. And trying to please someone else is no way to live — in art or for anything else… And also if the market was possible to predict we would all be very rich! There isn’t one market — there are many and they are in constant motion. Instead, it’s about making connections and finding like-minded people who connect with your ideas and work. Collectors + institutions invest in work that is critically important — so it should be every artist’s priority, to make work that is genuinely critically interesting. It’s important to be aware of current trends in art — but also culture at large and how your work contributes to progressing these. Artists do however need ‘business sense’ — but not really in relation to the market. By the time your career gets to the stage where you are making reasonable money, you will likely have gained enough personal experience to effectively deal with your situation, and have assistance from people who are more expert. When you’re starting out, you will likely be earning small amounts of money periodically — and will likely make some small money mistakes! But these usually don’t have serious consequences, and you learn from your mistakes so you are able to confidently deal with larger money situations when they eventually happen. It is far more important to be good with money — ie. know how to make savings, when to invest in your practice for important opportunities, and how to manage the budgets for the projects you are working on. 2) YES!!! Communication is super-important! 3) Cooperative ability, I didn’t understand the definition so rated it as 3 for the part I agreed with: YES — to cooperating with institutions etc. (5) NO — “The ability to create works that fit the theme of exhibitions even if you’re not interested.” (0) You should only ever do things that you find interesting. And work with like-minded people who you find interesting. This is where Cooperation is extremely important: you need to make connections with people who have similar interests and ambitions and help each other to accomplish your goals. Cooperation is super important so should be 5+ — but perhaps consider the definition? 4) Organisation — I’ve rated this 5, but perhaps should be more than 5! Being organised is extremely important. But not just in doing one thing — most artists have many different projects or activities running simultaneously. So you need to be organised to balance and accomplish many things at the same time! It is extremely important to finish projects as this is what develops your portfolio, and to always meet your commitments to prove you are reliable — your reputation is your “track record”. Attention to detail is also extremely important. Also, there are a few other things that are perhaps as or even more important than the categories listed: Self-Confidence Commitment Self-Motivation Self-Reliance Agility— Life as an artist can be very unpredictable — you need to be very flexible and agile to manage your continuous practice — to recognise opportunities when they happen and make opportunities for yourself if they don’t. Being Helpful + Friendly — Help other people as much as possible and people, in turn, will help you. Also if you are a nice and kind person, people will enjoy working with you! This sounds really basic, but a lot of artists don’t think about this. And most important: BE INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE!!! Take a genuine interest in what other people are doing, and they will likely take interest in you. You have to be interested to be interesting!

My reply:

Then she replied to me again and share her opinions and experiences. She also recommends me some artists to me.

Another expert’s reply

I would like to say that this is not quite positive feedback. But I realized that it could be a misunderstanding since I didn’t mention clearly each ability’s definition. It is also because this is a very early stage of the model. Again, reflect it to my model, I need to improve my communication ability, especially when I reach out to experts and predecessors. In addition, I also realized that I need to point out the differences between my model and the existing model. Both my model and the existing model should not be the only ones, it all needs to be iterated.

Intervention 5 – Use sound as a medium to convey the same emotions as paintings – Feedback

I received 26 pieces of feedback on this intervention.

Compare to the previous exploration, this intervention is a relatively useful way to strengthen the audience’s connection and resonance when viewing the exhibition. The data shows that 50% of people think the background sound can help them get more into the paintings. And most people can understand what the artists tried to express correctly.

From the angle of helping the audience better understand artworks, it is a relatively effective way. Now, I am thinking about the next step. How can I push my project deeper and further?

Intervention 4 – Add melody based on different color-music theory – Feedbacks

1. Please use 3 keywords to describe how you feel after seeing this painting.

A：Hot; Planet; Confused

B：Retro; Psychedelic; Serious

C：Mysterious; Chaotic; Unbalanced

D：Moon; Universe; Touch

E：Space; Remote; Hot

2. Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting from 1 to 5?

3. Please use 3 keywords to describe how you feel after watching the video?

A: Industrial pollution; Steam siren; Noise

B: Serious; Sci-fi; Future

C: Scary; Profound; Supernatural

D: Sad; Countdown; Destination

E: No feelings

4. Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting from 1 to 5?

5. How do you feel about music?

A: Busy port.

B: Serious; it feels like a prelude to a major event.

C: I think it’s mysterious and detached from reality.

D: Sad.

E: Feel like mining.

Comparing the two scoring charts, three people felt that the connection became stronger, and one even felt that the addition of music made him feel less connection.

Comparing the two keywords, I found that after adding music, the audience’s understanding did not change much. Some words are the same (orange part); some words are guided by sound, such as the sound of siren and countdown ( The blue part); some people even think that adding sound will make it feel-less.

There are many researches on the relationship of sound and color, and their theories will be influenced by the author’s own background, cultural environment, time and other factors. Therefore, to a certain extent, what music represents and what color is a subjective personal point of view, and it is not universal.

Sound and images are different media that can give different sensory stimuli. For the next step, I want to test if I use these two media to express the same emotion, even if there is no corresponding relationship between the two, will it enhance the transmission of information?

Intervention 3 – Invite audience to create sound by themselves – Action and feedbacks

Q1: Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting?

Q2: Please use this website to create sounds for this painting. http://www.moodil.com

blackbird+rain(dense)

leaf+white noise

rain(gutter)+wind(steady)+fire(calm)+frog(cricket)+meadow+footfall(snow)

rain(dripping)+water(clam)+forest(eerie)

Q3: Please describe the degree again.

Q4: Now, please use this website to choose an instrument’s sound that comes to your mind when you see this painting.

**https://outsidetheorchestra.org/bingo/**

Q5: Please write down a song/melody that comes to your mind.

1. The swan (instrumental song by Camille saint-saens)

2. Hair Flowin, Snow Falling – Jay Chou

3. Daytime nighttime – Tristesse Contemporaine

4. Calabash Brothers – Chinese nursery rhymes

Q6: Please write down a smell that comes to your mind.

1. Smell of rain/drizzles

2. Smell of grass

3. Smell of museum, cold

4. Dry ice smell

Q7: Please describe the degree again.

Q8: Will you buy this painting

All of the answers are ‘NO’.

Comparison three results:

Inviting the audience to create sound by themselves is a good way to strengthen the connection and resonance. But that doesn’t inspire them to buy art, which is the failure point of this intervention. And this failure made me realize that there is no direct relationship between resonance and purchase behaviour.

Intervention 2 – Add the nature sound corresponding to the painting – Feedbacks

1. Some thoughts in the audience selection process

Before I start my experiment, I will first use a few small questions to determine my audience. I hope my audience has at least one condition, that is, they are interested in art works. For example, they often go to art galleries, painting exhibitions and so on. I think at this stage, people who are interested in art may be the potential customers of my project.

Interestingly, of the eight people I found, all of them were art-related majors or regular art gallery goers. Some of them have bought gallery merchandise, but none of them have bought art paintings.

Moreover, when I asked them:’ Under what circumstances would you buy a work of art?’. They all mentioned 1) When i resonate with it 2) When I’m rich enough.

2. The results of the two questionnaires

Q1:Write down a few random words to express how you feel when you see this painting. If you don’t feel anything, you can write ‘No feeling’.

Without sound	With sound
mottled	Depression, fog
cozy，quite	cozy
cloudy day, life, city, street	A woman walking along the street in France,stepping on the sycamore leaves, coughing, good weather.
a little healing in the gloom	No more healing, feeling a little anxious
a little bit blue	delighted
no feeling	A little more realistic, more relaxed
watercolor painting	street, walking, morning
no feeling	a man is smoking outside and throw his rubbish

Q2: 1) Did this painting take your mind away? For example, remind you of some experience, a piece of art you’ve seen before, a movie, a melody, etc.

_{without sound with sound}

2) If yes, what is it? could you describe it briefly?

Without sound	With sound
a big teddy bear on a blue bin	covid 19
a movie called Midnight in Paris	walking in the morning, only myself
Monet, Van Gogh	Walking on the way to school, the sound of cars and walking sound, the scene is also street scenery
a square in Nottingham	when I travel to the beach
Movies	Living in London, Fleabag
	Music: The Carousel of Life
	a lawn in Nottingham

Q3: Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to the painting. （1 is the smallest and 5 is the largest.）

_{without sound with sound}

3. Analysis

1）The sound can help the audience understand it better

Before I add sound to the painting, I asked the painter what he want to convey. He said he painted scenes or objects on the street that people would easily overlook. He wanted to convey the idea of slowing down and observing life.

Then I added some natural sounds, such as the sound of walking, the sound of birds, the sound of wind blowing, and the sound of passers, to assist the content transmission of the painting.

From the answer of Q2-2, I found that with the help of voice, their understanding and association are closer to the author’s original intention.

2) This painting is too complicated

This picture is composed of many small pictures, and too much content will easily cause confusion to the audience.

I think I can try an abstract or surreal painting for my next intervention, and I can add more sensory experiences.

3) Question: how can I balance the connection and the understanding? how can I acquire evidence that the audience connect with the artwork? (not by questionniare)

The feedback and reflection of intervention 1

I chose to start with ‘tips’ because I found some students want to build their personal branding by creating an art-business account, but they don’t know how to start it. I also found that some tips provided online are quite general and are not only for art students. So I thought maybe interview the successful person and provide tips could help them.
After I talk it with my tutor, I noticed that successful people wouldn’t share their secrets. (I guess that’s why I sent lots of emails but nobody reply, and I didn’t realize it before.) In addition, the tips I’m offering are not what I or my audience can be successful if we follow it, so this way is useless. And this is not an intervention because it didn’t make the change.